IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE | CHRISTMAS IN WALES AND AROUND THE WORLD
Luke Owain Boult looks into the eccentric Christmas and New Year traditions of those around the world, and at home in Wales.
Christmas can be seen as a metaphor of culture, mutating and morphing with time and space. In an age of cultural assimilation, traditions often seen as common place have fallen victim to the void and only seem to belong in the pages of history books. Like the cultures of the world we live in, Christmas and mid-winter celebrations in general vary infinitely from the charming and intriguing to the downright bizarre. My all time favourite Christmassy tradition is the Peruvian festival of Takanakuy (from the Quechua for “to hit each other”), and it’s exactly what it says on the tin. In a not entirely dissimilar way to many family Christmases, this is a festival of airing grievances, drinking, fist-fighting, violence, and catharsis. If you’d like to experience Takanakuy without travelling to deepest darkest Peru, I would suggest a stroll down St Mary Street in Cardiff on a Friday night instead.
Another wonderful Christmas tradition is the scatological custom of Tio de Nadal (Christmas Log in Catalan) in Catalonia. Children hit a smiley-faced log with sticks demanding it poos hard giving them tasty treats and presents, with the threat of striking it harder. The children run out of the room and a blanket is placed over the log. Mum and dad put presents under the blanket. Kids run back in and are treated to their presents. This love of all things bottomly can be seen in the cakes in Barcelona around Christmas (use your imagination) and the interesting addition of a caganer (pooper) in the nativity scene.
The Japanese book out KFC months in advance for their Christmas meals, seen as a romantic holiday for couples rather than families, the Czechs starve themselves with the hope of seeing a magical piglet, while the Ethiopians eat spicy stews and play sports where they throw lances at each other.
Let’s not forget that Wales is rich with Christmassy customs of its own. How better to bring in the New Year than by carrying a hooded horse’s skull and knocking on your neighbours’ doors to request entry, harassing them until they surrender through the medium of song, and being given food and drink. The answer of course is that there isn’t a better way than the Mari Lwyd custom, which has made a come back in recent years. Celebrated in places like Llanwrtyd Wells, this is a tradition that deserves further observation purely because if the streets of Wales were filled with terrifying horse beasts, seasonal drunks may behave themselves.
Kids don’t have to miss out on this season of tricks and charms as they can take part in calenning, when children go out on New Years Day singing songs to welcome in the morning and are given gifts. Whether to shut them up or as a reward is anyone’s guess. Wales wouldn’t be the same without our rich singing heritage, and what could be more Welsh than Plygain, singing on Christmas Day. It is these traditions, along with foody customs like making taffy to predict the future by boiling toffee in pans and dropping drops of them in cold water, and Hen Galan in Cwm Gwaun, which still celebrates the New Year on Jan 13 according to the Julian Calendar, as well as mad swimming and diving traditions that make this country what it is.
It would be a true shame to overlook these traditions and cast them to the history books. Overall what you realise in all of these traditions is that they’re about bonding and connecting as humans, and that’s what’s truly important, whether you’re in a drunken fist fight in the Andes, putting pretend poo under a blanket, or terrifying your neighbours with a horse’s head like the Godfather. Nadolig llawen a blwyddyn newydd dda pawb.
photos CHES ESKAY, A RAVEN ABOVE PRESS, VALERIE HINOJOSA